When there are no winners in sports, everybody loses

The 2010 Winter Olympics was a golden moment for Canada. Our athletes were winning medals and we were waving the flag and pounding our chests in an uncharacteristically tribal display of national pride

The 2010 Winter Olympics was a golden moment for Canada. Our athletes were winning medals and we were waving the flag and pounding our chests in an uncharacteristically tribal display of national pride.

But not every Canadian “owned the podium.”

Jason Myslicki, a resident of Thunder Bay, Ont., was a competitor in the Nordic Combined.

He didn’t have a hope of winning, but he wanted to prove to himself, to the people who supported him over the years and to Canadians that he had fulfilled a dream.

Only the dream turned into a disaster.

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His jump went horribly, almost comically wrong. Jason Myslicki kicked off his skis and cried.

“My dreams were shattered right from the takeoff,” he told me at the time.

He failed. Miserably. But he didn’t quit. He raced his heart out in the afternoon, prying his way out of last place to finish in … second last.

It was a profoundly inspiring performance. Here was Olympic-proof that individuals are defined not by their defeats but by how they respond to them. Life is about winning — and losing — and the so-called agony of defeat is an essential part of the lesson.

At least it used to be.

A philosophical shift is afoot in Canadian amateur sporting circles that might change all that, a shake-up that would see losing relegated to the sidelines of children’s athletics in favour of a model promoting: “No Scores. No Standings. No Trophies.”

No winners. No losers.

Exhibit A: The Ontario Soccer Association’s “long term development plan” for children.

The plan calls for the creation of “under-8 festivals” — not tournaments, that’s too competitive a term — but festivals.

“Coaches and teachers” are urged to create an environment of “freedom and fun” for Little Johnny and Janey, who are to get equal playing time in a game without goalies, scores, game sheets, standings or stakes.

“Competition is something we have tended to push our kids into pretty early and the consequences can be dire, where kids can get turned off of sport very early on, and so there has been a push back toward emphasizing fun, on participation and focusing on the collective,” says Robert Schinke, the Canada Research Chair in Multicultural Sport and Physical Activity at Laurentian University.

“We do need to learn how to lose. But we have to be capable of competing first. To send someone out prematurely to compete might inspire some people — the winners — and discourage some people who are initially the losers.”

The participatory push, with no trophies attached to it, is intended to encourage kids to grow into what they like without the, ahem, pressure of having their burgeoning passion for hockey or soccer or baseball extinguished by a few bad games, a losing streak or the absence of any natural talent.

“There are certain physiological markers, such as co-ordination, and if someone is unco-ordinated how could they possibly win?” Prof. Schinke says. “Some people reach those physiological markers earlier than others.”

The academic offers himself as a case study. He was an elite equestrian. At a tender age he was always finishing last and left events feeling discouraged.

Without a stepfather to push him, he probably would have quit. Instead, he persevered and eventually represented Canada at the Pan-Am Games.

The point: Not everybody has a pushy stepfather. The counterpoint: if we coddle our kids in the barn, on the soccer pitch, in the classroom, and in life, insulating them against the perils of losing at a young age for fear they might become discouraged by it, how are they ever going to learn how to win?

And how are they going to handle the disappointment of not getting into the right university, not getting the job, not getting the girl, not getting everything they ever wanted simply by showing up and waiting to receive the same participant’s ribbon as everybody else?

There is only one gold medal. It goes to the person at the top of the podium.

Jason Myslicki retired after his Olympic debacle and enrolled at the University of Calgary at age 32 as a kinesiology major, an area of study that presented some serious academic challenges. He had not taken a biology course since high school. But he didn’t quit.

He hired a tutor, studied 14 hours a day, wouldn’t allow himself to be defeated by his classroom setbacks and worked, finishing with 95% — the second highest mark in a class of 400 — the mark of a winner.

Almost Done!

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